We’d heard that corporations in the vicinity of Bryant Park—where tomorrow’s Shut Down the Corporations demonstration will commence at 9:00 a.m.—were warning their employees not to engage protesters in the area. But we are pleasantly surprised to learn that the New York Police Department is expecting us: as evidenced by the department-wide memo they’ve issued (see below), the NYPD’s Counterterrorism Bureau Terrorism Threat Analysis Group (glad to know they’re on top of the important stuff) knows where/when the day’s activities will start, how/when the call went out, why we’re marching and who we’re targeting (B of A+907-5225&ll=40.753792,-73.978651&spn=0.008014,0.017831&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&fb=1&gl=us&hq=Bank+of+America+56+East+42nd+Street,+New+York,+NY+(212)+907-5225&cid=0,0,5144071383814236390&t=m&z=16&iwloc=A), Pfizer and Koch Industries). So that’s where all of our page views are coming from! They even pasted our #F29 poster into the document!

Their ultimate assessment, however, is pretty tame:

“At this time, there does not appear to be a concrete tactical plan for this demonstration, however the event’s main website recommends a number of non-violent tactics, including: “sit-ins, strikes, blockades, boycotts, banner drops, culture jamming, and performance.”

Culture jamming? Wikipedia, help me out:

“Culture jamming, coined in 1984, denotes a tactic used by many anti-consumerist social movements to disrupt or subvert mainstream cultural institutions, including corporate advertising. Guerrilla semiotics and night discourse are sometimes used synonymously with the term culture jamming.”

“There have been no specific references to violence in any of the public materials, online comments, or forum posts associated with this upcoming event; nevertheless, the institutions listed are likely locations for upcoming public demonstrations by groups associated with the Occupy Wall Street movement, which may result in disruptive activity.”

“No specific references to violence”? Great. So how ’bout you not randomly pick peaceful protesters out of the crowd and slam them to the ground tomorrow? Also, please don’t pepper spray us. Thanks.

Nice catch by southernwoman - They are specifically labeling Occupiers as 'terrorists' all over the country. Why does this matter? Because since the passing of the most recent NDAA, now any US Citizen affiliated with a 'terrorist' group can be detained indefinitely without trial by the US military.

Occupiers, LISTEN UP! THIS IS YOU THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT!

This law gives the government the ability to label patriotic, non-violent dissenters as terrorists, and put them in military prisons indefinitely. No phone calls. No lawyers. No arraignment. Just you, getting out of bed, putting on a jacket, going to a protest, getting arrested, and SENT TO A MILITARY-CONTROLLED PRISON UNTIL THEY FEEL LIKE LETTING YOU GO.

We really need to control the language used to describe the movement. It is SO important that we say over and over again that THE 99% ARE NOT TERRORISTS.

I know at this point I may sound like a paranoid alarmist, but it's impossible to ignore that Obama specifically requested that the indefinite detention language be put into the bill, and then he signed it into law. It was shortly followed by the Enemy Expatriation Act, a tiny little bill that will allow the government to revoke the citizenship of any citizen voluntarily “engaging in, or purposefully and materially supporting, hostilities against the United States”

Luckily, that bill still hasn't made it out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The NDAA was passed, however, and is a clear and simple way for the government to quell dissent by simply removing the dissenters from the general public.

Just know that when you hear 'terrorist' what you are actually hearing is 'person with no rights'... which may be at the heart of terrorism in the first place.

Make it clear that we are not terrorists, and that we do have rights and expect our government to respect them.

reason they are ready is because you post too much senstitive info regarding what you are doing, there is probably an infiltrator(aka undercover) within your ranks & thats why the cops are able to counter your tactics within the u.s.. seriously banging on drums and pissing off people isnt the way to get your point across. actions speak louder than words. when you had zuccotti park you had more power & leverage then to get your point accross to "bigbusinesses" than you do now.

lol, counter-terrorism huh... well at least we know how they really feel.

I was thinking of quoting the ominous phrase about "direct targets" to make fun of it, but I'm actually getting concerned that if I place those words in the same sentence as New York and hit "post" I will be hunted down like wild vermin and subject some kind of preemptive arrest where I wake up to the sound of a chainsaw being put through my door by a special agent (and that does apparently actually happen on occasion).

Anyway, I'm still holding out hope the Police will do the right thing when the time comes. I'd be worried about losing a sweet job too, especially when the other 99% of the time your job involves doing something useful for society, but at some point I hope they decide to stand up for the people.

The cops will follow orders, and indeed (barring obvious illegality) they're obligated to follow orders. So in their eyes, the "right thing" is arresting when they're ordered to arrest (not very complicated).

I'm not even saying cops are bad people, but they tend to follow orders pretty consistently (or else, they won't be cops for very long). I mean, if they're ordered to arrest protesters, and they say no, they're fired. Anyway, getting arrested comes with the territory (if one plans on routinely protesting), but it takes getting used to I guess. You get to court, and 8 out of 10 times they dismiss the charge. So their tactic isn't designed to imprison, but rather sweep the streets and kill the protest. It helps if there's too many people to arrest (but NYC has a ridiculous number of cops, so the numbers have to be really large in a place like that). If you had a few hundred protesters in Smallville USA, chances are the cops would just stand around and smoke cigarettes (since, short of calling out the national guard, there isn't shit they can really do, besides try and make sure things don't get out of hand). In this era of protesting, eventually cities will run out of money (after they get sued a few dozen times), and they won't be able to afford to keep pepper spraying peaceful protesters. Until then, one must be willing to get pepper sprayed. However, I wouldn't count on the good will of cops, they will stop abusive tactics only after being repeatedly sued.

Interesting to me that they are coining the movement terrorism here in the US. A few months, someone posted a flyer from London and that was how they were classified, as terrorists. Just makes it easier to stomp on the constitiution. might be an important distinction later, when things get worse.

Agenda for F29: March, bang drums, sit in, chant, scuffle with police, a few arrests, claim victory, post the success on the site.

YAWN.

I'm just wondering if the actual shutdown of these corporations is based on how loud the drums are being played. Or is it how witty the chants are? We'll see though. The VICTORY will be done no matter what!

If someone wanted to really cause trouble for financial firms, they'd hold the rally in Jersey City (where all their administrative offices are). If someone really wanted to cause problems for a pharmaceutical company, they'd hold a rally at one of their major manufacturing plants (again, the plants are heavily concentrated in New Jersey). I'm not sure if this is a good idea, but nothing will be shut down in NYC without something like 100,000 protesters (it certainly can't be done with 50 people, or even a few hundred people). If you had something like 10,000 people, you could certainly cause significant disruption. But at this point, the "occupy" tactic isn't a surprise anymore (and losing the element of surprise, creates somewhat of a disadvantage). I think the goals of any protest should be to be heard (easy enough), but also to disseminate a message (which seems more challenging).